Anyone who visits Napa Valley knows that you’ll make friends while visiting. Napa Valley is hospitality. Especially now after the fires last year, both Napa and Sonoma are looking for tourism to return in a big way. Over 99% of the wineries are open and ready for business. Many who have been will tell you THIS is the happiest place on earth. For this podcast we spoke with our old friend Alex Ryan, President and CEO of Duckhorn Wine Company.  Duckhorn includes Golden Eye, Paraduxx, Canvasback, Migration, Decoy as well as Duckhorn itself. We met up with Alex the week of PremiereNapa Valley at the Paraduxx Winery to talk about tourism, the fires and most importantly, sustainability.

Learn more by visiting www.duckhorn.com

Making wine in Napa Valley brings together winemakers from just about everywhere:  Minnesota, South Dakota, Michigan, France, Australia, Louisiana, Switzerland, Denmark and even, Napa Valley. Each year many of these winemakers come together in February to offer some very special wines for Premiere Napa Valley. Premiere is an event for the trade and wine industry professionals. Most of this years offerings were from the 2016 vintage and after tasting many pours, I can attest to the fact that these were some fantastic wines! I was not alone in this opinion. The auction raised over $4.1 million. As always the event was held at the Culinary institute of America in St. Helena which is where we recorded several short interviews with the winemakers and owners. This is one special day which concludes a busy and hectic week. We offer a sincere congratulations to the vintners for a job well done. The bidders did pretty well too! So sit back and enjoy the sounds the a successful Premiere Napa Valley 2018.

Winemakers interviewed for this podcast:

1. Adam Fox-Canard Vineyard
2. Michael Scholz-St. Supery
3. Richie Allen-Rombauer Vineyards
4. Luke Russ-O’Shaughnessy Winery
5. David Tate-Barnett Vineyards/Tate Wine
6. Todd Graff-Frank Family Vineyards
7. Don LaBorde-Paraduxx
8. Hailey Trefethen-Trefethen Family Vineyards
9. Aron Weinkauf-Spottswoode Winery
10. Molly Lyman-Volker Eisele Estate
11. Jean Hoefliger-Alpha Omega/AXR
12. Sam Baxter-Terra Valentine
13. Elliot Stern-Oakville East Exposure
14. Sara Fowler-Peju Province Winery
15. Yannick Rousseau-Y. Rousseau Winery
16. Stuart Spoto-Spoto Family Winery
17. Mary Rocca-Rocca Family Winery
18. John Skupny-Lang & Reed Winery
19. John Reinert-Brilliant Mistake Wines
20. Jennelle Manzanares-Bougetz Cellars
21. Elizabeth Vianna-Chimney Rock Winery
22. Aaron Pott-Pott Wine
23. Philippe Langner-Hesperian Wines
24. Sarah McCrea-Stony Hill Vineyard

Learn more by visiting www.napavintners.com

This podcast takes us back a few months during the Simply Italian Tour Tasting in Chicago.  Tony Apostolakos of Masi Wines was not only pouring Amarone but also a few other tasty Italian delights. If you’ve listened to some of the many Italian wine podcasts we recorded during the second half of last year, you may only now be realizing just how much you’ve learned about their wines. Complicated? Maybe, but this education comes with great taste!

Learn more at www.masi.it

For the past several years we have had a tradition of rebroadcasting the previous year’s Premiere Napa Valley, and this year is no exception. PNV is a great event where we get to catch up with old friends, lots of winemakers and make new friends. Once again we will be producing a podcast from this years Premiere which will go online the week after the event. For now, relive the sounds and fun of Premiere Napa Valley 2017.

Learn more by visiting www.napavintners.com

Just after high school, Ian McClellan was an intern at 5^th Floor Recording Company in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 5^th Floor is the home studio of Life Between the Vines. Needless to say it was thrilling to see Ian head West to join the wine industry and made a solid career for himself. Today, he is the Cellarmaster for Anaba Winery in Sonoma and we visited him and his wife back in November. After surviving harvest and the fires, there was a lot to talk about.

Learn more by visiting www.anabawines.com